The Alliances for Africa (AfA) Mission has launched ‘Kpoturum App’ for reporting and documenting cases of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in southeastern Nigeria.
‘Kpoturum’, which means ‘call on me’ in Igbo language, was launched during a one-day media engagement.
Programme Manager of AfA Mission, Blessing Duru, said the application would be used to gather real-time data to deal decisively with issues of violence against women and girls.
A study commissioned by the Nigerian Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that 28 percent of women aged between 25 and 29 have experienced some form of physical violence since age 15.
The study also showed that the level of exposure to the risk of violence for women varied based on marital status, with 44 percent of divorced, separated or widowed women abused.
Speaking at the launch of the application, Duru said it was designed to collect, collate and disaggregate data on VAWG through the reporting and documentation of gender-based violence (GBV) cases in Abia, Enugu, Anambra, Imo, and Ebonyi states.
‘It is no news that we are facing a pandemic on Violence Against Women And Girls (VAWG)’, she said.
‘Sadly, violence against women and girls has become not only endemic but normalised in the society despite efforts by all stakeholders to stamp out the vice through massive awareness and frontline response services.
‘From trivialising rape, victim-blaming, to gas-lighting survivors, we are all daily witnesses to this rape culture and rising incidences of VAWG, which has continued under the guise of culture, tradition, religion and the impunity of perpetrators, the most predominant being sexual assault on minors as revealed by global statistics, as well as scholarly research studies carried out to analyse the current situation.
‘Sadly, available statistics have not adequately painted the true picture of the situation due to limiting factors, including the culture of silence, the lack of systems to document and analyse data, the limited scope of research papers and projects, among others.
‘It is on this premise that Alliances for Africa, a feminist organisation in Imo state, with years of working experience around women issues, developed the Kpoturum web application with support from the African Women Development Fund (AWDF)’.
Duru said that her organisation would be networking with other NGOs to escalate the web application and its functionalities.
Source: NAN
Photo source: Kim Nowacki
